The small moments
by misbarbosa
Summary: Sunday morning, rain is falling, and Castle and Beckett enjoy the small moments raising their three kids. Simple one-shot from the "seven years later" scene.


**Note:** Hey! This is a simple fic, but I've always imagined Castle and Beckett doing simple things with their kids, just having a normal life, being normal parents. So, I wrote this today and decided to share. Hope you like it. :)

* * *

_The small moments_

It was just a peaceful Sunday morning of their agitated life as parents – being a parent of three isn't always easy. But at least they weren't little babies anymore, so they would sleep all night, thank God. Lilly was seven years old, the older one, so she didn't give them big problems. Jake and Reece, though… the three-year-old twins knew how to turn the apartment upside down. Castle loved it, because he could see himself as a kid in the two of them. Kate, on the other hand, was always trying to keep things in order. _"Just let them, they're having fun",_ he used to say. And she used to go crazy: _"Castle, their faces are full of toothpaste!" _and Castle would laugh about how furious she got about it, enjoying every second of the mess they used to make on the loft. Everything Lilly didn't do when she was their age. Peaceful times raising an angel.

The rain was falling. Despite the time – eight a.m. -, the cloudy sky gave a comfortable shade to their room. The soft sound of the drizzle trickling on the windows was somniferous to Castle and Beckett's ears, that were sleeping like angels.

Until a distant sound of a glass cracking onto the floor awakened Kate.

With eyes still closed, she lazily tapped Castle. "Babe," she called with a sleepy, raspy voice. "Your kids."

His tired eyes fluttered open, and they heard the twins chortling.

Castle mumbled and stretched his muscles before going in there to see what those energetic little people were up to.

Castle opened the bedroom's door just to see his twins running and giggling around the loft, still in pajamas, and his bigger girl trying to sweep the mess on the kitchen's floor.

Lilly froze when saw him. He closed the door behind him and went to see what she had broken.

"Daddy, I'm sorry," she said softly, averting his gaze. "I was trying to reach a bowl to make us some cereal." She pointed to the milk and the cereal on the counter.

"Why didn't you awake me and mommy?" He asked softly. "We could've done that for you, like we usually do."

She lowered her head. "I wanted to try it myself."

Castle's heart melted. She was trying to make her firsts steps to independency, and he was so proud.

"I understand, love," he smiled and extended his hand, so she would give him the broom – that seemed giant close to her - and leaned it in the wall. "Wait here, I'll be right back."

She saw him coming back with a vacuum cleaner and a trash bag, catching the twin's attention when he came back with that big thing in hands.

"Good morning boys," Castle said as walked past them, that were sitting on the carpet with their favorite toys.

"Morning daddy," the twins replied together.

Castle started picking up the bigger shards carefully, throwing on the trash bag and knotting it. Then, he vacuumed up the smaller shards until the floor was clean again. Lilly observed everything with attention.

"See," he pointed to the floor where the glass shards were. "When you just sweep the floor, the smallest pieces of glass will still be there, and you might step on it and get hurt."

She nodded. "Thanks, daddy," she smiled to him.

He smiled and placed a kiss on her scalp. "Go stay with your brothers, let me finish your cereal."

He was preparing the kids' breakfast and saw the twins running towards the stairs.

"Hey, you two! Stop running close to the stairs!" He tried, but they couldn't care less.

Lilly observed them giggling to each other, that now were happily running around the sofa. "Did you hear what daddy said?" She also tried. Nothing.

"Hey!" Kate's loud voice of command came from the bedroom's door and made everyone stop; including Castle. "What is this mess here?" Kate asked, with her fist placed on the waist. "You two," she pointed to the twins, and then to her feet. "Here, now."

Castle observed from the kitchen the impressive scene of two little people with innocent faces walking towards mommy.

Kate stared at the twins for a moment, and they glanced at each other.

"It's his fault," they simultaneously blurted out, one pointing to the other.

Kate frowned and crossed her arms. "I saw _both _of you pretending you weren't listening to your daddy."

Their heads lowered.

"Look at me."

They hesitantly looked up.

She kneeled to be in their level and look them in the eyes. "When daddy ask you to either do, or stop doing something, you listen to him, 'kay?" She said in a low tone so that just the two of them would hear it.

They nodded.

"I know daddy is all silly, but you got to take him seriously sometimes too," and she smiled when the boys chortled.

"I heard the S word, lady." Castle murmured in the kitchen, while finished the last bowl of cereal.

"Now, it's time to eat breakfast," she got up again. "You can play more later, okay?"

"'Kay, mommy," they replied simultaneously.

They ran to the table were Castle was placing the kid's bowls and getting some fruits along with juice on the fridge.

Kate walked to the sofa where Lilly was observing her this whole time and sat next to her.

"Good morning, baby girl," she opened her arms and Lilly leaned toward her, resting her head on Kate's chest.

"Mom. I'm not a baby."

Kate chuckled. "You'll always be a baby to me."

She rested her nose on the girl's scalp, there was a spot of her head that had a natural smell and that made her feel so safe and calm…

Lilly was her first kid with Castle, and she was so grateful for her first baby being a girl. Her outlines changed a little bit every day, and it was impressive how she was a mix of her mother and herself. She had Kate's eyes, and Johanna's hair. Besides that, Kate realized that Lilly was a smart, determined kid like her big sister, Alexis. Kate had learned so many things from her until now, despite her young age. And if she kept following Alexis' steps, she would become an amazing human in the future.

Kate looked at Castle putting the boys on the chairs and made Lilly get up, and they walked with wrapped hands towards the table, that was filled with a colored breakfast.

As Lilly arranged herself on her chair, Kate and Rick gave a peck on the lips, followed by a "good morning" and a smile.

* * *

After the healthy breakfast feast, Kate head was resting on Castle's shoulder on the sofa, his hands were around her neck, resting on her shoulder. Lilly was reading a book on the carpet.

The twins were making sounds with their little cars, playing around the sofa.

"They're growing so fast," Kate said softly. "Yesterday they were just babies and now they can read, speak and imitate the sound of a car."

Castle smiled and tried to look at the twins behind the sofa, and then looked at Lilly's concentration on her book.

"Hey sweetie," he called Lilly. "What are you reading?"

"Harry Potter," she replied, showing the cover. "It's Alexis'."

Her parents smiled. Castle remembered when Alexis used to be just like her, reading Harry Potter with that big blue eyes of hers.

"They do grow up fast," Castle replied her previous statement. "But we have to enjoy every single second of their childhood."

Kate buried her head on his neck, her arms encircled his waist.

Sometimes, when Kate stopped to notice everything that was happening in her life, she wouldn't believe that all of that was true. She had married the man she loves, had three babies with him, - that when somebody asked her about babies a few years back, she grimaced and said "no, I don't want none."

And she never wanted, that was a fact; but she met Castle, and everything changed. She saw him as a father when they were nothing but partners, and that used to awake some feelings on her interior, and then they got married and she felt so strangely safe to have a family, she never thought that one day she would _want_ a family, but with him? He changed her mind completely, having a family became her biggest dream; to see little faces that they made together, a mixture of the two of them. The way he took care of her when she was pregnant, and how he protects their kids with such tender. He's always there, he was always there. Even before he was there in person, because she was a fan of his books, and used to carry one everywhere.

She chuckled.

"What is it?" Castle asked.

"Remember when we met?"

"Oh, I remember," he smiled. "The image of you showing me that NYPD ID turns me on every time."

She smacked his arm and threw him a look. Their daughter was just there in front of them, for God's sake.

"Relax," he murmured and waved with his hand. "If she's a little bit like Alexis, she is a hundred percent focused on her book."

The twins started running again, this time towards Lilly, and she mumbled. "Mom! They don't let me finish here."

"Boys, don't disturb your sister's reading." Kate commanded, and noticed they were still in pajamas. She thought about changing them, but they looked so cute, dressed alike.

They started to run to another direction and Kate's eyes followed them. "Don't go to the stairs!" They weren't listening. "Boys!"

"Reece! Jake!" The boys stopped with Castle's voice. "Listen to your mother, don't go to the stairs!"

And they nodded.

Kate crossed her arms. "I just did that an hour ago and they listened to me."

Castle smiled with satisfaction, resting his back on the sofa again. "You don't understand, honey. You gotta learn from me."

"But _you _learned from me."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did. You used the same tone as I did earlier."

"And you used the same tone as I did with Alexis twenty-two years ago."

Lilly, that was listening everything even with her eyes glued on her book, rolled her eyes to that. Kate noticed and chuckled quietly. _That's my baby girl, _she thought.

The small, almost imperceptible details like that one, were the ones she wanted to remember the most in the future. Every time she catches a detail in that family, she realizes what unconditional love means, and how grateful she is for being able to have that feeling in her life. That reminded her of her own mother, and now she could understand everything her mother used to say to her; her way of being so worried about her all the time, the way she demonstrated love and the way she cried at her presentations at school for Mother's Day. Kate could feel all of that now, all that love she spent her life wondering if she would even have someday, a kind of love that she lacked since the only person that could give it to her was gone.

And that's why she thanks her mother every night. For every step she took until she got here, where she is now, in her man's embrace, watching her kids being kids after an amazing breakfast. She knew that all of that was happening to her because of the way Johanna had showed her how to love and raised her to be the woman she is today. And, for Kate, her mother was always there. Not only in the picture framed on the nightstand next to her side of the bed. Kate had already talked about grandma for her kids. Of course, carefully; telling them how she used to work: helping people, giving them justice, and stating that now she's an angel, and that's why she wasn't there with them today. Lilly got inspired when heard the story, said that wanted to be a lawyer when she grows up. And Kate smiled to that. Course her baby wouldn't have just her grandma's hair. She would have her _brain_ too. When she told the story for the twins, she tried to make it a little easier for them to understand. And they got impressed to know their grandma was like a superheroine that helped people with magical, intelligent words, and that now she lives in the sky, along with the other stars.

Every morning, when Kate sighted her three babies, she quietly promised her mother that she would take care of them, give her blood and her life for them. Protect them, just like her mother protected her, while she could.

Kate rested her chin on Castle's shoulder.

His eyes were focused on the twins, that were now playing on the carpet, just to make sure they weren't doing anything wrong. He knew those little not-so-angelical-angels very well.

"Rick?" She murmured.

He looked at her beautiful face so closed to his and couldn't keep himself from raising a smile, causing her to do the same.

"I love you," she murmured, her gaze traveled around his face.

"I love you too," he murmured back.

He took a hand to her cheek and pressed his lips against hers. "You have no idea how much," he whispered against her mouth, and they kissed again.

Unbothered by the kids' presence, he carefully lied her on the sofa, still kissing her. But it just lasted a few seconds, until they got startled with one, two, three little people jumping onto Castle's back to hug their parents, yelling and laughing with joy, contagiously making the couple laugh with them.

This moment, Kate thought, would be on the list of the small moments that she would never forget.

_The end_


End file.
